n Tuesday, October 11, 2011, Ukraine's former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of abuse of authority for signing gas contracts with Russia in January 2009.
In April, a criminal case charging Tymoshenko with signing overpriced gas deals with Russian energy provider Gazprom was opened by Ukraine's Prosecutor General's office. And on October 11, Yulia Tymoshenko, the country’s top opposition leader, was also banned from holding government posts for three years after the end of her seven-year sentence and fined 1.5 billion hryvna (almost $190 million at the current exchange rate) in damages to the state. Judge Rodion Kireyev said Yulia Tymoshenko, one of the leaders of UA's pro-Western Orange Revolution, was convicted of exceeding her powers by personally issuing directives related to the gas deal that had cost the state-owned gas company about $190 million. Tymoshenko said she would contest the conviction, and spoke up as the judge read the verdict, saying the judge was “taking Ukraine’s freedom.” Interestingly, Mrs Tymoshenko, 50, insisted she would appeal and blamed her treatment on Viktor Yanukovych, who narrowly defeated her in last year’spresidential election.
Ukraine's former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was jailed for seven years for abuse of office over a major gas deal with Russia in 2009
Moreover, Ms. Tymoshenko was also banned from holding government posts for three years after the end of her seven-year sentence and fined almost $190 million
Yulia Tymoshenko interrupted the judge during the reading of the verdict
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko outside the Prosecutor General’s Office in Kiev, Ukraine on May 24, 2011
Ukraine's ex-pm Yulia Tymoshenko spoke to media in front of the district court in Kiev, on June 24, 2011
Tymoshenko and her daughter, Yevgenia Tymoshenko as the verdict is being read out
Tymoshenko embraced her husband Oleksander in front of court security guards
A rally near the Pecherskiy district court in Kiev October 11, 2011 was held by women's rights organization Femen
During Yulia Tymoshenko trial, her supporters gathered outside the Kiev court where the trial is being held
Yulia Tymoshenko trial: 7 Years in Prison
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